The Rain People

Summary

“I just had to get away for awhile.”

Warner Archive has recently released Francis Ford Coppola’s 1969 film The Rain People on Blu-ray. This was a release that makes excellent sense given the amount of curious film collectors like myself that own much of Coppola’s output. The Rain People was a minor drama that Coppola wrote and directed that did not do much in the box office, but still showed studio heads that he had enough potential that he was hired to direct The Godfather. Warner Archive had released his Coppola’s minor musical Finian’s Rainbow a few years back, so it was nice to see The Rain People get a release. I had been wanting to see the film for years and I watched it the other night.

At six o clock in the morning, housewife Natalie Ravenna (Shirley Knight) leaves a note for her husband Vinnie explaining that she loves him but needs some time for herself. She heads out in her Ford, leaving her husband behind. She visits her parents, who have no sympathy or understanding for her plight. Natalie phones Vinnie from a pay phone and lets him know that she’s pregnant, but she is not sure if she is quite ready to be a parent. He wants her to just come home, and she expresses that she loves him but needs some time. She begins her journey of self examination on the road. She picks up a hitchhiker named Jimmy “Killer” Kilgannon (James Caan) off the side of the road. Natalie lies and says her name is Sarah. Jimmy was a college football player at Altamont, but he decided to leave there. They drive for awhile before stopping at a motel for the night. They stay in separate rooms. He comes into her room and she has him remove his shirt and dance with her. She plays a game of Simon Says with him that doesn’t go too far. In talking with him, she finds out that Jimmy had suffered a brain injury in a football game. He is heading down to West Virginia with hopes of getting a job from a girl’s father who had rooted for him when he was a football star. The film traces the road trip of the unlikely pair.

Coppola is an amazing filmmaker, but The Rain People is not an amazing film. Upon its release, The Rain People earned mixed reviews (with Roger Ebert notably praising it) and underachieved at the box office. I tend to agree with those who did not find the film worked. From my perspective the script by Coppola felt underdeveloped, self important, and pretentious. I hate to say these things, because Coppola is a hero of mine. The characters are not totally convincing and the audience is never given much of a reason to like them. The finale of the film wraps things up somewhat, but it is far less profound than it seems to think it is. This is a case of strong visuals in service of a fairly weak script. I don’t find any fault with the acting in the picture or the cinematography, but the film has too many long stretches of silence. The editing is also somewhat awkward, as if Coppola was finding more meaning in those silent moments than the audience would. The pacing of the picture drags, and ultimately the film can’t help but feel overly long. 

As I mentioned, the acting is not at fault. Shirley Knight handles her role of the distraught housewife on the run pretty capably. James Caan is actually pretty great as the mentally damaged Jimmy Kilgannon. Robert Duval is also very solidly cast as a highway patrolman named Gordon who has designs on Natalie. Tom Aldredge also has a memorable role as an unpleasant character in the film. The cinematography by Bill Butler is appealing with some moments that are extremely striking. These are the moments where the talent of Coppola shines through in the film, but unfortunately they are not enough to save the picture.

The main reason to see the film is to cure your curiosity about the beginnings of the career for one of the greatest American filmmakers. I appreciate that Warner Archive has given the film a Blu-ray release so that I could experience the film the way that Coppola intended. Unfortunately, I still can’t recommend checking this one out. It fell flat for me.

Video

Warner have, as per usual, done excellent work on the transfer of The Rain People in 1080p using an MPEG-4 AVC codec in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The film has been placed on a BD-50 which allows it to shine with no compression issues whatsoever. The transfer was done in conjunction with American Zoetrope in 2019, and it can be guessed that it looks exactly as was intended. The Rain People has a number of visually striking moments as the characters drive across the country. A decent amount of the film uses somewhat softer focus, which was a popular way of filming at the time.

Audio

Warner has provided a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track that replicates the original sound design of the film. There are long stretches of the film where it is pretty quiet and no score appears, but the score by Ronald Stein is fittingly dramatic and pretty with some nice fingerpicking and string arrangements that accentuate the melancholy aspects of the story. Clarity is excellent. There are no issues to report with the track. Fans will be pleased.

Supplements:

None

Overall Scores:

Video – 4.25/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 0/5

Overall – 3/5

The Rain People was one of Coppola’s first extremely personal films. He wrote and directed it and drew a solid cast for the minor production. The film is visually appealing, and the cast play their parts well, but the script is ultimately a meandering mess. The film never fully makes the audience buy into the plot machinations or characters despite its attempts, and worse than that, it feels pretentious and overindulgent. This is an example of an art film where the artist failed to truly shape the script prior to filming. The core story could have worked with some additional shaping, but, as it stands, I would advise skipping the film. That said, like many people, I had been curious about The Rain People for many years so I appreciated that Warner Archive gave it a Blu-ray release. There are no supplements, but the video and audio transfers (supervised by American Zoetrope in 2019) are likely to remain the definitive way to experience the film moving forward. Fans of the picture should not hesitate to purchase, but I found the film very disappointing overall. As a collector, it was nice to mark it off the list, but it is not a film I will revisit.